Day 35 - Quick Sketches

Was reading a book  called Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists:52 Exercises to Make Drawing Fun by Carla Sonheim. She suggested drawing your animals on index cards. I sat down Friday nite and did a few. Now I have more than a dozen and several more that are lettered quotes.  Thinking about turning them into an accordion book.

I actually cut up some cardstock to draw on instead of buying index cards.

These are my favorites of my cat Tom.

About 11 I decided to paint a couple of them. The card stock was miserable to paint ok. It was like painting on hot press paper. The color literally seemed to stick to the paper.  Drawn with a Kuratake pen that I got at Binders a couple of weeks ago.

I do rather like them. But can't you see the actual brush strokes?! So odd. I usually use cold press paper. Much more forgiving.

His eye is a mistake but that unforgiving paper wouldn't let me change it or scrub it out like cold press would.

One is of Zoe, the rest are Tom...they both are big snugglers and hard to catch when they are awake!! And of course easier to draw when they are asleep! 

Here's some of the sketches. More tomorrow.

the eleventh day of may

sitting at Toyota waiting for the car to be tuned up...after drooling over the latest new cars in the show room i sat down to hmmmm draw....NO molie....well drawing molie that is...oop it was in my car which was in the shop...

So i got out my writing molie that a friend gave me and drew these..with a large pointed gel pen...no fel tip either.I think the lady on the left thought i was doing something...she got up and left...oopsss....

A class with Lura Schwarz Smith

Our quilt guild hosted Lura Schwarz Smith today and everyone had a great time...Lura is well known as an TOP award national award winning quilter who makes intricate quilts with faces drawn with tsunieko inks....We had people from as faraway as Raleigh, Atlanta and Charleston driving to take her class...she did a great job and everyone drew some great looking faces with the inks she specializes in. She always found something positive to say about everyones work.

This is what I drew in class today . Fabric drawn with tsunieko inks which can be bought at www.jukeboxquilts.comThis is the original photograph...she is a cutie...Kim's niece...guess i will have to give this to Kylies mom or to Kim to give to Kylies mom! I think it would look good framed under the Christmas tree for her mom...right now I cant think of another thing to do with it...

Practicing shading with the tsunieko inks...
Lura teaching...she was a great teacher...working hard all day long using every teachable moment she could find...

Ann Stalnaker and Ille Waters working hard on inking thier grandchildren.
Marlene Seabrook-O'Bryant drove from Charleston to take the class...Marlene is a very interesting person...the first woman hired by the Citadel...and she is also a hoot...I run into her all over the place at all the best quilt spots like International Quilt Festival...a few hundred thousand quilters but I found Marlene!! or did Marlene find me? We do that alot at quilt shows!
Marsha Boasso having too much fun...knowing Marsha she was picking on Connie....and MARSHA WHY didnt you take all your l eftovers home with you...I didnt need them:>
Connie...I hear her now...I can do this I will learn how to draw...
Diana...another of our travelers...from Raleigh NC drove down 5 hours to take Lura's class...

Well now I know why I have been tired!

Its a miracle I got this challenge done when I have done all that I have done this week..three meetings, work and finishing the collaborative quilts, quilting a quilt for a good friends first grandchild, and starting and completely quilting and binding my brother in laws birthday present...thank goodness my friend Connie helped sew it together....

Look at all these drawings on top of all the sewing...I think i drew anything that would hold still long enough for me to draw it in spare moments...some of these were seconds...alot were done in meetings after school.....

And how many sketches??? Seven....if i didnt leave any out...think i will take today off and take A NAP!!!:>






I drew my dhs favorite dog for his valentines present...Jazz poised on a pile of quilts....I used masking tape to lift some of the color...and it works like a charm...prismacolor in large molie...

MONDAY- Another meeting...quilt guild meeting on Monday nite....more opportunities...in my wc moleskine...got to get these colored...
TUESDAY - An after school shower....dont you love the wild red hair??? and its every bit that red...


WEDNESDAY - Baby sitting a first grade class on Wednesday....a sketch of one of the girls who was playing school while waiting for the bus...her "class"ran off while she was teaching them..thier bus was called. And one little boy working hard on the ABC machine...AFTER school...he has a ramrod straight posture...


THURSDAY NITE -This started as a quick pencil sketch to show the kids what a hamster looked like...they had a paper that they had to write the sentence Meg is fast on and then draw the picture...I could not figure out WHAT they were talking about...I had thought Meg was a girl...NOPE she was a hamster...they kept trying to explain to me what she was...finally I asked Ms. Anderson...and the girls HAD drawn pictures of Meg...the hamster:> AND after I drew a Hamster for them...they said she needed all these things...slippers, a necklace....well you get the idea...it was a really fun moment in the day...The girls were drawn from photos i took of them earlier this year...and the bottom one is the spitting image of her...

THURSDAY -Faculty meeting...ripe with opportunity to draw....not the best sketch...think there is tooo much contrast in the colors ...and that white stripe on the nose has GOT to go...but the kindergartners recognized her SOOO it cant be too bad..."fizzle" fight...I thought but no that was "physical fight"...who knew?

Two more sketches...daily drawings continue

the first is really an everyday matters sketch...I found a recipe in a magazine at school during lunch called Tagliatore al Pomodora which more or less translates as tomatoes with spaghetti or tagliatorre which is a little wider than spaghetti. There was an extensive shopping list for the tomato sauce which I bought...ummm the can of tomatoes imported Marzano tomatoes from Italy cost FOUR dollars...and ahhh i need to go back and buy another one...OH well...everyone wants to know how good is this sauce going to be...I will let you know when I stop and get the other can...I think i need another onion too...maybe its onion tomato sauce...but all the colors did make for a great looking sketch...and I wrote the recipe above it so I would be sure nNOT to loose it:>

A few new sketches...more daily drawings

I am finding these things quite addictive..the more I draw the more I want to draw...

This is a country church yard that I drive by on my way upcountry from Augusta on hwy 28...always have liked the way the two dead firs look...and the old wonky building...prismacolor pencil and ink. I actually pulled over on the side of the road to draw this one.. Would you believe there were fishermen out on the river today...this guy was ALL bundled up...it was 45 outside and the wind was literally howling down the river blowing this guy OPPOSITE the current down the river...not UP the river....and his boat was moving in slow lazy circles past our house...my husband said the perch are running...and they are catching world record sized perch down by the bridge at the end of the neighborhood with a dollfly and the smallest minnow you can find...BUT HES NOT out there fishing:> TOO cold for my dear dh...

Two views of Challenge #100 & Finally Challenge #93

done....hallelujah....now only two behind...I think or is it one...have to find a paperbag... The first two...the landscape challenge are the trees outside our window on the island across the river...the first is prismacolor pencil done last Saturday and the second was started Sunday and finished on Monday....been quite another stretch of grey days...there were a few turkey vultures hovering over the island off and on Sunday...
so can I count these as the view from my window challenge as well as the wing challenge:>

OKAY got the egg carton Challenge done too...we seem to only buy Egglands best eggs lately...my youngests favorite eggs...because they are good for us mom...but they spoil fast! So eat up kids!

Also prismacolor pencils ...the colored pencils were laying in front of the egg carton...wonder what was on antiques roadshow...cause I definitely missed it this week...maybe I wont be drawing tomorrow nite and can watch it then??!:>


The last two are quick sketches....first in between testing waiting for more third graders....the first graders were giving the chair a work out as they waited for thier individual tests...and the expressions ran the full gamut of expressions from pouting to boredom to can i JUST get this over with...happy to report that they all seem to be passing...HALLELUJAH!!!:>
Today I had to go on a Molie buying expedition to Barnes and Noble...and I found a new kind...for drawing WATERCOLOR and hmm whatelse...temperas....the paper is a different softer thickness than the original sketch books we all love...I am going to get out the wc and color these Barnes and nobles clientelle to see how it takes wc...its the SMALL sized book and they only had one ....the pages dont rip out...and the texture seems slightly different too...looks like the color is slightly different than the one above with the kids pics...

OK something else i learned..the more I draw the more I want to draw...seems like thats all i want to do lately...I am getting quite brazen about drawing in picture although i did let the lady who sat opposite me at Barnes and noble this afternoon escape undrawn...lucky her!! I do think the quick drawings of people are improving alot...except for the unfortunate blob on the one lady's nose also known as her glasses...:>